In association with outdoor lighting, there have been previous attempts to power street lights and/or other outdoor or indoor luminaires through harvesting wind or solar power to charge a battery source that in turn powers a light source of a luminaire. However, wind and solar power sources are not always available, leaving an outdoor luminaire powered by such sources dependent on weather conditions. Moreover, the battery or energy storage devices required to operate such luminaires have a limited life span. Additionally, the potentially sporadic nature of the charging cycles associated with available wind or solar energy make the charging of the energy storage device more difficult. Furthermore, such wind or solar collection hardware devices and energy storage devices are costly to install, require generally large hardware, and typically require a pole nearby for the installation.
In other outdoor lighting solutions, there have been attempts to power street lights directly from the 120/240V secondary of a transformer. However, this type of solution involves additional costs of transformer hardware, such as transformer protection devices (e.g., fuses and lightning arresters), as well as higher costs on ballasts, dimming controls, and more costly installation than current street lights. Additionally, transformers are not always located where light is needed. To power such a street light, it is required to have secondary voltage in the vicinity of where the street light is needed. This sometimes requires running long cables to a transformer or adding another transformer at the location the light is needed, which adds to costs. Accordingly, there is a need for a solution that addresses one or more of the above-mentioned shortcomings associated with energy solutions for general lighting.